Web Koihime Musou

Web Koihime Musou is a browser-based strategy game based loosely off of the Romance of Three Kingdoms story. Players assume the role of a lord in one of the three kingdoms: Gi, Go, or Shoku. You then manage your resources, training your troops and expanding your domain as you can. You can research technologies and develop abilities for your warlords as well. Finally, utilize trade, politics, and force to overcome your opponents.

Web Koihime Musou Overview

Web Koihime Musou offers players a different take on the classic Chinese story Romance of Three Kingdoms, where the major officers of the period are portrayed as female. Players begin in one of three kingdoms, and develop their lands, train their troops, and develop skills and abilities for their generals. The game features alliances, trade options, and resource management tasks in order to grow and conquer the land.

Web Koihime Musou Screenshots

Full Review

Web Koihime Musou Full Review

By, M. Hauschel

A New Journey

At the start of the game you are given the choice to choose a strategist (Or warlords, as the game calls them later on.) to play as. There are five in total; each one has unique traits that could help the player in different types of battles. An unusual feature of Web Koihime Musou is that all the characters in game are female. This is partly because of the anime series, by the same name, has reimagined the classic historical story Romance of Three Kingdoms to replace the majors male characters with female counterparts. Giving the story an alternate history of the classic historical novel. After you have chosen a warlord, you are then given three kingdoms to choose from to serve. Some of the descriptions of the kingdoms didn’t make any sense. As an example, this was a description of one of the kingdom’s rulers, “Motherly Instincts/ Newtype!?” There are a few places in the game where the translation of text to English didn’t go over to smoothly.

After being given the choice of what kingdom to serve, you are given the option of where you want your base to start on a map.

On you main screen, on the right side, the strategist you have chosen reminds you of tutorials that need completing. She has a heart floating about her head indicating you have a tutorial. This same heart appears above her head when you have a mission to complete as well.

Web Koihime Musou has the basic resource system; players have to collect wood, clay, grain, stone, and coin. Coin is primarily used to hire more warlords, and is difficult to collect. All other resources are collected outside of your base and production and storage is improved by upgrading them. These resources are used to train troops, construct buildings, and upgrade building.

When building, researching, training, and upgrading, they are queued on a system based on time and are completed one at a time. This can become tedious if you have a lot on you queue list that needs completing

Is that supposed to happen?

There are definitely some kinks in game play. This was apparent during tutorials; images used as examples are sometimes not current depictions of the options. Small mistakes as name changes without it being changed in the tutorial can throw off a player looking for something that no longer exists. The tutorial displays images that are sometimes too small in order to read the accompanying text. They are helpful in trying to understand the game and showing options of advancement. One specific tutorial, the mini-castle coordinate report tutorial, required the player to write down coordinates to later input on a different page. It was just bizarre that this was required, what was more bizarre was that tutorial provided information for something no longer useful.

Once the tutorials are completed, the game halts to a screeching stop. For the most part you want to expand into more territories, and in order to do so you must battle other castles. Except to successfully do so, is quite an ordeal. The battle options are stilted and vague. It will give the illusion as if there are more options to select from, but there will only be one option already chosen for you. When attacking another castle, the battles are mystery. The game gives a battle report after an attack, but it will reveal no information other than if you lost or won. There’s no way of knowing what another castles have for their troops and no way of planning an attack. The lack of a spy option or being given a full battle report makes for attacking castles a shot in the dark.

How’s that journey going?

You may be asking what a player is supposed to do; that’s not very clear. I ended up just focusing to resource collection and researching and leveling up troop types. The story is vague is very confusing; with the game being based on an Anime series, there should be more of an explanation of the story for those who have never watched the series. Not knowing the story of Romance of Three Kingdoms and this story not being well explained in game creates a confusing start. According to their official site this is their explanation of the story:

“A fictional history…

That is the beginning of an epic new journey.

If you wish for it hard enough, even a story that has already ended can be reborn anew.

The story itself is infinite within our own imagination.

The fate of that history is now in your hands.

Your decisions will affect the future of that history.

Are you ready?

Well, then… What are we waiting for?

Let’s open the doors to a new past…”

Well, I guess that explains it, right? From what I could gather from the intro in the game, there are three kingdoms, each with their own warlord. They are ruling the land in order to unite all three kingdoms. You, as the player, are helping to unite the three kingdoms. Why, may you ask? Honestly, I have no clue.

Final verdict: Fair

Web Koihime Musou is currently in open beta (aka full release), and is more suited for the casual gamer. The pace is the game is slow, and advancing yourself becomes dull and tedious. Web Koihime Musou has potential to be an interesting game once major concerns have been corrected. Those of you who expect action right off the back, will not be impressed by this game.